Chapter 31
Chapter 31
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 9
>Chapter Title: Armadillo (2)
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One of the three forbidden texts that had existed since the era of King Yu of the Xia Dynasty: the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*.
The oldest geographical record, it contained numerous accounts of bizarre phenomena.
The Armadillo was one of the mythical beasts listed in it, described as a ferocious creature of such peril.
-Scrape! Scrape! Scrape! Scrape! Sssssss!
The swarming insects were too numerous to count.
Mok Kyung-un stroked his chin with a troubled look and said to Qing Ling,
“These bugs are the Armadillo?”
-No. There’s a mythical beast that gets along well with insects. Or rather than getting along, it immobilizes them.
“There’s a lot.”
There truly were.
Before he knew it, the floor was blanketed black with bugs.
They filled every inch, leaving no room to step, making it reluctant even to get down from the bed.
Those with weak stomachs might find it torturous just to look.
Mok Kyung-un glanced at the Demon Monk, who was still leaning against him.
-Squirm!
The Demon Monk’s wounds were slowly mending.
Seeing this, Mok Kyung-un said to Qing Ling,
“These bugs must be connected to what happened to the Demon Monk, right?”
-Probably.
“So even Qing Ling isn’t entirely sure.”
-What do you mean I’m not sure? I saved your life when the reverse kill came flying. Be grateful. Without me, you little mortal would’ve been done for.
“Reverse kill?”
Reverse kill.
He recalled reading about it in the *Yin-Yang Family Basic Text*.
When afflicted by a bizarre entity—or resentful spirit—it was called a “kill.”
Returning that kill back to the spirit or its host with the aid of a higher being was termed a reverse kill.
A form of vengeance, essentially.
‘An ordinary person wouldn’t know how to do that.’
Here, Mok Kyung-un’s mind raced at an astonishing speed.
While most would freeze or panic amid the onslaught of bugs, he calmly analyzed the situation.
‘Sorcerer... then it must be Great Madam Seok.’
He pinpointed the culprit in an instant.
In this scenario, the only one who could summon another sorcerer to request a reverse kill was Great Madam Seok.
She wasn’t the type to give up easily, just as expected.
Mok Kyung-un shook his head slowly.
-What will you do? Sit there, and you’ll end up as bug food.
Qing Ling tilted her head.
The legs of the wooden bed the bugs had reached were scraping and sinking.
-Scrape scrape!
The rate was quite fast.
The only bug-free spots were atop the bed and the long table holding the herbs.
Actually, there was one more.
‘The lamp.’
It was slightly different from the rest.
Insects typically swarmed toward light.
They approached unwittingly, only to recoil from the heat or burn, leaving a circular gap around it.
“Qing Ling. Can you help?”
-Hmm. Why should I?
“......”
Mok Kyung-un raised one eyebrow and stared at her.
Qing Ling snorted, took a deep drag from her pipe, exhaled, and said,
-I helped out of compassion while you were circulating energy, but now that you’re awake, you can’t handle this much?
At her words, Mok Kyung-un smacked his lips.
She always went sideways at crucial moments.
He’d thought her friendly response to his question meant she was warming up, but apparently not.
“We’re practically in symbiosis. You’re going to do this?”
-I’ll at least keep you alive.
“Aaah.”
What a tricky guardian spirit she was.
At that moment, Qing Ling taunted him,
-Hey, little mortal. Let me make a proposal.
“A proposal?”
-Yeah. Get out of this mess on your own. If you handle it solo, I’ll seriously consider helping you from now on.
Mok Kyung-un clicked his tongue at her words.
She was his guardian spirit anyway, so she’d have to help if his life was in danger.
It was ridiculous for her to propose this.
Unlike the Demon Monk, her higher tier—or perhaps her stubborn, strong-willed nature—made her this way.
“No choice, then. The desperate one bends. Let’s try the easy way first.”
-The easy way?
At Qing Ling’s question, Mok Kyung-un raised his voice and shouted,
“Is anyone there?”
Outside the herbal hall were the outer hall warriors.
Getting their help was far easier than handling it himself.
“Warriors?”
But no response came.
The shadows through the paper window clearly showed them standing...
‘Hm.’
They were there, but their heads were slightly tilted to the side.
They seemed unconscious.
Something had been done to them.
-What were you expecting?
“...Yeah.”
Mok Kyung-un shrugged.
-Thud thud!
Then, a shadow approached the paper window by the herbal hall’s door.
The shadow’s shape suggested a woman, with a bird perch on her right shoulder bearing a grotesque silhouette.
It had a bird’s beak and a snake’s tail—an unusual form.
-To come in person. Quite confident.
“Is that it?”
-Hoo. Yeah. That’s the Armadillo.
The bizarre shadow on her shoulder was apparently the Armadillo.
Qing Ling, puffing her pipe and blowing smoke, snorted disdainfully and muttered,
-Now they’re even keeping that damned bird-snake runt as a guardian spirit.
“You hate it, huh.”
-Insects are the absolute worst.
Qing Ling shuddered as if she truly loathed bugs.
It was unexpected to see her dislike them so.
Surely she wasn’t refusing to help just over something trivial like this?
He trusted not.
-Scrape scrape!
By now, the bed had sunk nearly halfway from the bugs.
The same went for Go Chan’s bed.
Mok Kyung-un bit the underside of his wrist.
-Crunch!
-What are you doing?
“Temporary measure.”
-Temporary?
-Drip drip!
Blood flowed from the bitten wrist, and Mok Kyung-un scattered it everywhere.
-Splatter splatter splatter!
A wondrous sight unfolded.
Where his blood touched, the bugs convulsed with eerie sounds, then fled frantically from those spots.
Qing Ling watched, puzzled, and asked,
-Why are they acting like that?
“I’ve eaten a lot of toxic herbs since I was young, so my blood is poisonous.”
-Your blood is poisonous?
She stared at him in disbelief.
Having poison in one’s blood was akin to being a poison person.
The more he revealed, the stranger this guy got.
-Splatter splatter!
Mok Kyung-un kept sprinkling blood from below the bed outward.
The bugs’ terrified avoidance showed just how potent the toxin was.
Soon, no bugs approached near Mok Kyung-un.
Meanwhile, Go Chan’s bed was precarious.
-Scrape scrape!
He’d sprinkled blood to keep them at bay as much as possible, but since it wasn’t around there, bugs surged through blind spots.
Mok Kyung-un grabbed a wooden pillow from the bed and tossed it to escort Go Chan.
-Thwack!
“Eek!”
Go Chan awoke with a start from the hit to his head.
The awakened Go Chan instinctively scanned around and freaked out.
“W-what is this?”
Innumerable bugs.
They blanketed the floor and were even climbing the bed.
The startled Go Chan shook out the blanket to dislodge the bugs.
Mok Kyung-un said to him,
“Stay on the bed and keep grabbing bugs. It’s dangerous down there.”
“Y-young master? What the...”
“I don’t know either. But I advise against going below the bed.”
‘This is insane.’
Go Chan was utterly bewildered.
For now, though, he had to shake off and fend against the bugs as Mok Kyung-un said.
As they battled the bugs, it happened.
-Bang!
The herbal hall door opened, and someone entered.
Seeing this, Go Chan yelled in alarm,
“You there! It’s dangerous—don’t come in!”
The intruder was a woman with one milky-white eye.
She was the sorceress Sak.
“Danger... what?”
Go Chan’s eyes went wide.
As Sak took a step inside, the bugs parted left and right, forming a path.
Of course, it was because her guardian spirit controlled these bugs.
-Squirm!
Her mismatched eyes gleamed as she entered.
She’d meant to apply gradual pressure to instill fear, but somehow the bugs couldn’t approach.
What had he done?
Puzzled, Mok Kyung-un said to her,
“Are you the sorceress?”
Sak furrowed her brow at the question.
The seventeen-year-old pretty boy standing on the bed didn’t look possessed by any bizarre entity, no matter how she saw it.
Even if possessed by a green spirit-level resentful soul, he wouldn’t look like that.
‘Is it that?’
Sak’s gaze shifted to the massive Demon Monk leaning against the wall behind Mok Kyung-un.
Her black pupil saw nothing.
But her white eye saw it.
The resentful spirit.
‘...Yellow spirit?’
Her white eye narrowed.
Through it, she could gauge the approximate level of bizarre entities or resentful spirits.
Yet that injured spirit looked unmistakably yellow spirit tier, no matter how she viewed it.
‘No way?’
A yellow spirit couldn’t deflect a reverse kill.
That meant it wasn’t the yellow spirit, but rather Mok Kyung-un—the presumed host—who had done it. Yet he clearly wasn’t versed in sorcery.
Then who had performed the reverse kill...
-Young one, but you’ve got some skill.
A voice rang in her ear.
Sak whipped her head sideways.
-Throb!
In the hazy boundary, a blood-red something made blood vessels burst in her white eye.
“Gasp!”
Startled by the intense pain, she squeezed her white eye shut.
What was that just now?
Her white eye, which peered into the netherworld, couldn’t contain that entity.
No, precisely, she herself couldn’t accept what her white eye projected.
It was right then.
-Uwaaaaaah!
Suddenly, the Armadillo, meek on her shoulder, let out a horrific screech.
“Armadillo! Calm...”
-Uwaaaaaah!
Unable to endure the ear-shattering cry, Sak clamped her ears.
She stared at the Armadillo in bewilderment.
It glared at something with overflowing wariness, so terrified it couldn’t control itself.
‘For the Armadillo to be this scared? What the...’
-Uwaaaaaah!
-Shatter!
With the Armadillo’s screech, the floor bugs surged upward chaotically.
Their orderly formation vanished.
Winged bugs took flight, charging madly at Mok Kyung-un and Go Chan.
“Y-young master!”
The panicked Go Chan floundered.
Then Mok Kyung-un reached toward the nearest lamp.
Reciting an incantation in his mind, he unleashed the Grasping Form.
‘Right at the limit.’
Focused within one *zhang*, he could pull distant objects with the Grasping Form.
The lamp’s position was exactly at that precarious boundary.
-Rattle!
The lamp stand shook.
Then it flew straight into Mok Kyung-un’s hand.
-Thud!
Go Chan’s eyes bulged at the sight.
For Mok Kyung-un, who hadn’t even formed his dantian yet, to display such a miracle was astounding.
But only for a moment.
-Whoosh!
Mok Kyung-un leaped in one bound to Go Chan’s bed.
He then swung the lamp wildly at the incoming bugs.
-Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
The heat-scattered the rampaging bugs every which way.
Yet influenced by the Armadillo’s ceaseless screeches, they frantically sought gaps to dive in.
“Go Chan, escort dagger!”
“Huh?”
“Dagger!”
At Mok Kyung-un’s shout, Go Chan fumbled at his waist.
But the dagger he always carried for treatments was atop his folded outer robe below the bed.
Go Chan leaned down and reached.
-Scrape scrape!
“Eek!”
Bugs from the floor clung to the hem and dagger.
He hesitated a moment, then gritted through and grabbed it.
The clinging bugs bit his hand furiously.
A single bite might not hurt much, but dozens changed everything.
“Argh!”
Go Chan shook and raised his bitten hand.
Mok Kyung-un swung the lamp at it.
-Fwoooosh!
The bugs still attached fled in panic from the flame.
“H-here!”
In the gap, Go Chan passed the dagger.
Mok Kyung-un took it, handed over the lamp, and said,
“Keep swinging it.”
“Y-yes!”
Go Chan swung at the flying bugs.
Meanwhile, Mok Kyung-un drew the dagger and—
-Slash!
‘!?’
—sliced across his own forehead.
Not deep, but enough to draw blood.
‘W-what?’
Go Chan couldn’t hide his shock.
Why suddenly self-harm?
But it didn’t stop there.
Mok Kyung-un slashed various spots on himself, creating wounds.
-Slash! Slash!
“Young master, what are you doing!”
Even amid his cries, Mok Kyung-un continued.
‘...Has he gone mad?’
Even sorceress Sak, struggling to control the Armadillo, momentarily lost focus on Mok Kyung-un’s actions.
Self-harm out of nowhere—what madness?
As she gaped in disbelief,
The bloodied Mok Kyung-un from his self-inflicted wounds smirked at her.
-Chill!
So eerie was his expression that Sak grimaced.
She’d seen far scarier things as a sorceress.
Yet this felt utterly different.
Right then.
-Thud!
Mok Kyung-un kicked off and charged straight at her.
‘What’s he doing?’
This was suicide.
Bugs rampaging toward him, and he rushes in while mutilating himself.
Suicidal mania?
So she thought.
But then—
-Patter patter patter!
An unbelievable scene unfolded.
Bugs that touched Mok Kyung-un convulsed and dropped to the floor.
Even those nearby dodged him desperately, as if refusing contact.
A path cleared automatically.
‘Why are the bugs...?’
She couldn’t fathom it.
More wounds should attract them with the scent of blood, yet...
No time to dwell.
Mok Kyung-un was right in her face.
“Armadillo! Block him!”
Sak yelled, leaping back while reaching for a talisman in her bosom.
Mok Kyung-un hurled the dagger at her.
‘Damn!’
She twisted to dodge in alarm.
Then the uncontrolled Armadillo sensed her peril and flew from the perch, batting the dagger away with its talons.
-Thwack! Clang!
It then screeched ear-piercingly at the threat to its master.
-Uwaaaaaah!
With the screech, bugs whirled in a vortex from the floor.
Something big was about to happen.
Right then.
-Swoooosh!
-Uwaaaah?
The screeching Armadillo lurched forward, sucked straight into Mok Kyung-un’s hand.
The Grasping Form.
-Gurk gurk!
The throat-grabbed Armadillo choked in agony.
“Phew. Quiet now.”
Mok Kyung-un gazed contentedly at the captured Armadillo.
Sak’s eyes widened at the sight.
‘...Impossible.’
How could he grab someone else’s mythical beast barehanded?
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